Is your photography page personal, as in pictures of you, things about you, or etc, or is it impersonal; mostly anonymous, just your pictures, not much information about the actual photographer(you).
I ask because I can see benefits and disadvantages to both and I’m wondering what is better.
Having a personal page let’s people get to know and get closer to the photographer which is good if you want to shoot people for example
Making it impersonal just tells one about your photos which is great too, and affords you privacy.
I used to. But the internet’s favorite hobby is speculation and everyone has such an opinion that I stopped most of my personal stuff. I still share a tiny bit here and there, but I don’t care if people critique my business. It’s when people get too in your business that made me stop being as vulnerable. I think I was viral on the web from 13-33, since COVID I’ve dialed back massively.
What’s your Instagram?
What are some pitfalls? What are some pros and cons?
I don’t have my business linked anywhere in this profile and insta was about when I cut back on socials. I think I only have 1100-1200 followers and suck at updating it. Crazy to admit as a photographer. My business exploded when FB Biz pages led to tons of exposure, so I don’t have to maintain on socials like I used to. Most of my clientele are repeat and referrals. This is my only semi-private social media acct. I was never a national name, but I’ve been online since the 90s as a teen and was viral in many teen spaces, and well enough known in my large city to be comfortable.
For me, I’ve watched the internet go from “don’t tell people your real name!” To social being semi private to now, people analyze the color of your underwear and speculate negatively for sport. Some large, life-changing moments happened to me and I noticed when I struggled, most people were gone, and you don’t want your clients knowing your hard life points… mostly. It can make some people uncomfortable. I was always an open book, so people weaponized certain info (family stuff, not any like crimes or anything lol) and I realized so many just liked the clout/being nosey and gossiping. I don’t like any of 3. I may return some day, but for the most part I’ve gotten older and realized my privacy is everything.
The higher you climb, the harder the fall, and the more visibly up you are, people are watching and HOPING you’ll fall down. It’s a sad reality. “Small town fame” to full on celebrity has its drawbacks. I also value my privacy with my kids so I don’t share but a few photos and I used to do 30-50 shoots a year with them.
I do think being consistent and posting 2-3x a day is necessary to keep your name out there for so long. It definitely has plenty of benefits, but what I do share via my business is mostly business and just a tiny insight here and there of my personal life.
So nearly everybody who follows me knows me personal too, so why not making it personal, thats my opinion if it helps.
There’s an “about the photographer” page with a headshot on my website, but otherwise no. Not if I can help it.
Nobody needs to know why I think Princess-General Leia is arguably responsible for the Starkiller attack on the New Republic.
This depends on what image of you, you want to give the audience. And this depends on the audience, you want to reach. Its good to handle it the way, that fits to what kind of connection you want to establish with the audience / client.
As long, as you have a business reason to share private stuff there it may help. For example. A family photographer, may share pics and stories, that show mor of the private life. Good dor establishing connection, with potential clients. If you are doing fashion or corporate stuff, there is bo rason to share stuff like that.
Thats only my mustard to the livercheese. Have fun shoot on.
Sure. If you want to attract business as a freelancer, you have to build a personal brand. This goes double if, like me, you’re a journalist that is paid in part because of their particular voice and point of view. Of course I don’t mean you should shoot your mouth off about politics or whatever, but it’s important for people to see behind the curtain a little bit. It makes reaching out to them easier because you know who you’re dealing with and that they aren’t just some faceless hired gun.
At first I thought you were talking about your website because it doesn’t say differently in your post. I saw in a comment that you are talking about Instagram. Instagram is not my “photography page”.
I have a picture of myself on the contact page of my website. I don’t really use Instagram anymore but when I did, it was split pretty evenly between architecture which I do professionally, landscape which I do for fun, and pictures of my city which I do both for fun & work. I would post behind the scenes type pictures of me getting the shots. A lot of people used to approach me because they recognized me from IG. I never posted anything about my personal life.
I have a picture of myself on the contact page of my website.
right, same here. IMHO that needs to be there, but no more than that.
i do like 90/10. i mostly share personal stuff on to instagram stories (like me on location or me meeting a cute dog or me and my 13 ounce bone in rib eye) , and post my work (portraits, bts, campaigns, etc) on the feed. however i will throw photos of myself in with my work if i’m doing like a 10 photo swipe post. usually its me and the model on set or its a bts of me shooting the model that my assistant takes for me. just makes you more personable and allows potential clients to see who they are hiring besides the actual work. i get a lot of work from instagram and a lot of the times they say “its good to see you’re not a weirdo before actually meeting you” or things of that nature. since i shoot a lot of boudoir type stuff for onlyfans or playboy models.
I’m completely anonymous on my website and socials. Nothing personal anywhere ever.
I’m personal in real life when I meet people face to face, and that’s where I get all my gigs.
When I started to post photos of models and landscapes, I used my own profile in Facebook. I just used dedicated albums for each subject.
But I early noticed it wasn’t very good in the end, for the client side (as if I had a client side back then).
So I knew about Facebook pages and created one. Now, I only post “work” in my page, nothing really personal. Maybe a few selfies here and there, when someone catches me shooting or so.
I prefer to split it up and have the possibility to share links and photos between my page and my personal profile when I want to.